Shots of Awe, Not Shock and Awe!

Roughly 5 years ago a young guy claiming to work on Al Gore's TV network asked me to "friend" him on Facebook. He said he'd been reading my posts, especially when I wrote about "the life of the mind", that we had many digerati friends in common and he'd like to share ideas. I googled him and checked our mutual "friends" list and found him to be interesting, so I clicked "confirm". His name was Jason Silva.

Some of you may know who he  and others will have no clue. http://thisisjasonsilva.com His website will give you an idea, for those of you who don't know. He's doing what he said he wanted to do, elevate discourse to the state of awesome investigations into worlds we've yet to imagine. He's been compared to Timothy Leary, associated with Ray Kurzweil/Al Gore/Fortune 500 companies, hosts National Geographic's "Brain Games", and narrates beat philosophy in his "Shots of Awe" YouTube series. He was born in Venezuela, went to college in Miami and now resides between LA and NYC. He is 20 years my junior and prolific in his ability to flow philosophy to the masses like a master jazz musician. https://www.facebook.com/jasonlsilva/videos/vb.1578052705792342/1579437918987154/?type=2&theater

As his popularity rose, I realized I was shifted from his personal fb page to his professional fb page. No biggie, I am still getting the content of his machinations and sharing in the life of the mind conversation.

Today is Memorial Day. It is a day where we are supposed to honor the soldiers who have sacrificed for our country. Many have given their lives, limbs and peace of mind for our flag and philosophies. A front line journalist who I used to represent, Markos Kounalakis, annually posts a film he made of Mark Twain's "The War Prayer" on this day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVod4PwQHs He directed and produced it, along with some Grade A talent. Twain's Prayer is a harsh indictment of war. It was published 13 years after his death, as his family feared retribution for the ideas laid bare in it. Twain himself told a reporter when is was discovered and he refused to publish it,  "No, I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead." When you view it, you'll understand why. 

You see, our democracy is supposed to separate church from state. However we all know this is not yet achieved (even a hundred years after Twain's death and beyond our experimental nations bicentennial). I teach too many texts on war compounded with this corrupted philosophy: Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns" & "The Kite Runner", Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front", Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" & "Hamlet", Zola's "Jean Gourdon's Four Days", Helen Keller's "Strike Against War", Kingston's "Warrior Woman"  and the films, "Joyuex Noel" and  "Princess Kai'ulani". 
My high school students, the people who will be both our next voting electorate and a disproportionally large population to enroll in the armed forces, become emotional weary of these texts. They depress and confuse them. The only texts that give them some hope are the Hosseini novels and the Princess Kai'ulani film. 

And that is ironic! The wars in Afghanistan have been raging almost their entire lives (from 2001 to present). Yet, the characters they relate to and feel compassion for are the American annexed Hawaiian Princess, the Russian overrun Afghanistan female and male protagonists and the Scottish/German/French soldiers in the trenches of WW1! Most armies are young and male. The fact that the princess and Afghani girl are held in high esteem by my students is a new shift in the story telling and receiving lens. 

When asked how many students have members of their families or loved ones in the armed forces, the hands of a majority of my students in all 5 periods will rise. When asked how many of those serving or who have served will openly talk or discuss what war is really like with them, usually there will be a hand or two raised. My classes are large, by the way, 20 at the smallest and 30 at the largest. 
When asked why those who are serving joined, these are their answers: Education, 9/11, Family Legacy, Money, Technical Training or some combination thereof. When asked why they have enlisted, and a large number each year do, the answers are the same. None say: Country or Flag or Honor or National Duty.

When we study Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and Martel's "The Life of Pi" they have two very strong reactions. The hate Kafka and love Martel. The angst and symbolism of Kafka is oppressive to them, and it takes a while for them the understand all the historical and philosophical context. What they also don't know, until I point out the method of my madness, is that Martel's tale is just as dark and oppressive, it just has a modern and global sensibility. Both deal with man's search for meaning. Both deal with overcoming loss of control. In each it isn't country vs country or government vs government, it's man vs man. That starts to be hinted at in Remarque's WWI novel, when the protagonist commits treason by giving the enemy food and cigarettes; he sees them as himself. We have long discussions about life being a series of choices at various junctures. We discuss the characters choices and by extension our own. 

At several points during the year I summon my inner Harvard Professor, or rather I borrow liberally from a Harvard Course on Justice taught by Dr. Michael Sandel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY  It is basically a course on choices and morality with the philosophical high stakes of who would you kill and why. The URL above is just the first of many, and it's entitled "The Moral Side of Murder". I'll have you know that once I start to pepper my lessons with these constructs the students beg for them often. The second one is "The Case for Cannibalism". Sounds grim right, but it's a feature of our human animal history that we don't like to discuss or bring to light often. Murder is much more common. So common that we have played homicide games since infancy. We even teach our pets to "play dead". 

Getting back to Church and State. I live in Massachusetts. I was born in Boston. We recently sentenced a man to death for a terrorist act, and I wasn't happy about it. Yet many were.  I was raised by college educated, quasi-hippie, take it to the streets, write to your congress person, question authority people. I will mention that none of my blood relatives have served in a war since the Civil War, and then it was in a divided state: Kentucky. Mark Twain was living the last time any Nazor or Harrison fought in a war. Also none of us have attended church regularly since the '50s.

War has gone from being chess piece matches with platoons of men to systemic disruptions with a handful of men. Church has been slowly removed as first the Industrial and later the Scientific revolutions took hold. Yet America is still the child of England, and even though most anglos moved here for religious freedom, it's taken hundreds of year for us to finally see organized religion waning as an adjective by which we define ourselves. Many of my students, 10 years ago, still clung to their Catholic faith. Now fewer are being confirmed and fewer yet say they will continue to practice once they leave home. Many are starting to write college essays about separating from their faith and making choices based on who they are as individual vs a member of a congregation. This has been a seismic shift in the student body. It's also starting to change the way they think about family legacy and enlisting. They see, first hand, more of the effects of PTSD. 

What the students learn from their families and the texts is that in order to win wars you must dehumanize the enemy. They have also learned that is only temporarily achieved. The energy of those you killed, maimed or crushed follow you home. The artist, like Remarque, tries to give it meaning  or exercise it through writing. The professor tries to make it a moral lesson by imagining it and then taking it apart choice by choice. The psychiatrist does the same thing by talking the soldier through it, day by day, battle by battle. I lived with a Vietnam Vet, Ron Ouellette, for three years on a boat. He would have what we'd call "black spells". He'd been a truck driver who delivered supplies to the front lines in Vietnam. When he returned to the states he was broken, became a vegetarian, and had a vasectomy. He's seen innocent women and children killed and decaying by the side of the road. He said he could never bring a child into a world that could do that to people. He processed it after I left the boat, and while we stayed in close communication. He became an ICU nurse. First in the USVI and then in Florida. He was stable and content, until the vets started coming back from Afghanistan. Their stories were his story. The tapes playing in their head re-activated the stories he'd worked a decade earlier. When he retired a few years ago, he had to deactivate the tapes and has now regained a much deserved and hard won contentment. He started traveling again, this time not by boat, which was his primary mode of transportation since returning from Vietnam, but by car and to National Parks. They say that the state of awe one experiences in viewing the Grand Canyon shuts off all the usual patterns of thinking and jumpstarts you right into that much coveted place called FLOW. I believe that the National Park tour, with his latest lady friend, has been powerful medicine in restoring a sense of inspiration to my friend. He used to manufacture it himself: building two boats, one house, going back to school in his 40's, nursing vets and so on. Now he's receiving it and I'm so happy for him. 

I took the kids to see the latest Mad Max movie on Saturday night. It's a post-apocolyptic tale of hope and redemption. It's a wildly feminist take on the old Mad Max franchise, like they threw in some Margaret Atwood and did hire Eve Ensler (who contributed to the screenplay) http://time.com/3850323/mad-max-fury-road-eve-ensler-feminist/.  Seeds, breastmilk, breeders, male slaves and one female amputee truck driver will give you an idea of the landscape of "Fury Road". Mad Max isn't the protagonist, Furiosa (Charlene Theron ~ she's mad as hell and won't take it anymore) the warrior! I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet, but it shows that the time of the woman, peace, contributors vs authoritarians  and nurturing may actually be gaining root in our consciousness, and it may start to grow in the real world. 

The above is the Peace Prayer by St. Francis of Assisi. I boldly pronounced my crush on the current Pope of the same name to my class of World Studies students last week before we took our field trip to NYC and the 9/11 museum. If you read the last word in each line it goes something like this: 
Peace
Love, 
Pardon,
Faith, 
Hope, 
Light, 
Joy, 
Console,
Understand,
Love,
Pardon,
Life. 

You notice two Pardons. That is what we have to do to move forward as the human race. Pardon our trespassers and ourselves. That is the only way War will ever end and we can enter a time of Peace. 
This will take a great deal of active thinking to achieve. It will take a great deal desire and inspiration. It will take more than knowledge, it will take imagination and determination. We will have to shoot ourselves full of AWE, and not longer commit acts of Shock and Awe! 

This is my prayer for Memorial Day: That the world will learn to live together as one, so war will be impossible, as there will be no "us" and "them". Jason's "Shots of Awe" are a step in the right direction! 

Happy Memorial Day, to young and old, dead and living, G'Day! 

Good Night, Grandmaster Flash, G'night!

Tomorrow I'm going to NYC with 50 students and a handful of other HS teachers.
I'm a different person than the the 25 year old who moved to NYC. NYC is a different city than it was too...but whenever I drive into the city this album (with the title track) still is the sound track to my arrival...danced to it in Portland for a year or so arriving in NYC...but it still is the first sound track, aside from Denise Williams self titled album, that resonated as music of my generation in the city. Patti Smith was just enough older to not feel like mine, although I loved her and she played CBGBs.
But this was the new sound...the sound of the basement clubs where people still actually spun records and made beats on sythensizers. I'd often be one of a handful of white faces. I had many jazz musician friends who invited me to the after hours clubs and parties. They weren't called raves until another 10 years, but they were fun and fresh. Forever Grandmaster will by my #1 rapper. The one I listened to living in Brooklyn while I looked at the Twin Towers  and walked to work over the Brooklyn Bridge to Astor Place or while I was looking down Cornelia Street while waiting for my unofficial Godmother, Margie, aka Max.

I must go to sleep, but let this whole album wash over and see what you think of the early rap I hold so dear. Good night, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, G'night! xo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2kpDqMGyzA&list=RDz2kpDqMGyzA#t=23

Mad Men & Mercury & Money

 It's been 25 years since Freddie Mercury, the four octave singer from Queen died from complications of AIDS. This Sunday will be the ending its 7th and final season of Mad Men. So I've been subconsciously thinking about pop culture tonight.

What's interesting to me, is that all night, as I've been listening to various Queen songs sung by Freddie, I've kept thinking of Don Draper and his second wife, Megan. I couldn't figure out why this association kept tapping on the front of my forehead, but it did. Then I realized, if I telescoped the various incarnations of Freddie Mercury and superimposed them over the Mad Men characters, I'd get a SPY Magazine match for "Separated at Birth" for Don (with a scribbled mustache) and Megan!

I loved Freddie Mercury's music and art (yup I own the book of Queen Art). I love the writing and acting of Mad Men. Together their eras encompass my youth and merging into adulthood. Queen with their music, style and anthems infecting my development, while,Mad Men represents the era of my childhood.

I stopped counting friends who died of AIDS when the number reached 33. Religious and literary power number or simply superstitiously, I just stopped at that number. The way the second to last episode of Mad Men has come crashing in full of minor chords, and the threat of a more discordant denouement for the show, leaves me feeling a tad anxious.

Well written & acted characters, singers with skin tingling personas and people who live life to the fullest are my weakness. They say the life of Freddie Mercury, as a boy growing up in Zanzibar under his families religion that celebrates life and has many family feasting rituals, gave him a strength as his body grew weak. Don Draper has lived the life of the mind, both as an ad man and as a character that is supposed to embody the American Dream of rags to riches, Horatio Alger and all that jazz. In this 2nd to last episode, his mind and imagination are still strong, but he's body is beaten up by stranger men he'd just confided in earlier that night. I'm not sure if Freddie contracted AIDS from men or a man who knew or not.

I read an interesting article in The Atlantic today, too. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/the-masculine-mystique/309401/?utm_source=SFFB&fb_ref=Default
How what is really affecting families now is that we all, collectively, fighting for money, regardless of gender or sexual orientation and who is "head of the household".   The American Dream as a meritocracy myth is finally disappearing as the rights of equality rise and the disparity between rich and poor rises in tandem. As we saw in Mad Men, with Peggy and Joan, and same sex families struggle to make ends meet now, the cost of living has out paced the rate of inflation since the early 70's.

I wonder what Freddie Mercury would be singing about now, if he'd just lived long enough for a life stabilizing cocktail (although most of the men I knew who had those died by the mid-90's, just a few years later than Mercury). Would he be married and with kids, like Elton? What if Don Draper made it intact to the 1980's or even 2000. Would he be a Maker Dad, letting his CEO wife go out to work while he stays home, tinkers and taxi's the kids?

It's late. I have too much to do, but my mind likes to take these kind of strolls every now and again. More rumination at a later date and in more depth.

Good Night, 2nd half of the 20th Century, G'night!

Convergence and Cheer

Today I announced on Facebook that my daughter will be interning at the Silverman Lab for infectious diseases at the UMass Medical School for 8 weeks this summer. My girl is 17 and entering the world of work, responsibility and consequences. This is a great opportunity for her, and we're all thrilled.

Yet, I keep having flashes of seeing her as 4 years old and explaining reincarnation to me, as she tried to make sense of a dead whale that had washed up on Ocean Beach in SF. She had never heard of reincarnation, but the process she was describing of the "whale leaving it's body, becoming energy that will go back into the sand,  sea and later will came back as another life form", was pretty startling from the mouth of a preschooler.

Now she celebrates Mole Day in HS, finds Trader Joe's Avocado’s Number Guacamole hilarious ( named after Lorenzo Avogadro, the math & physics whiz, who came up with 6.02214199 x 1023), and will be measuring chemical reactions in a lab. A lab that has "The goal of our lab is to decipher the molecular mechanisms responsible for transmitting a signal from the site of infection to the nucleus of an immune responsive cell." Did I mention she has benign neutropenia, which means a hyper immune system. Did I mention that the first year of her life, she was constantly having her blood checked, so she's very afraid of needles and a part of this job will require the lab gives her a special shot? Too funny, right?! 

She's always been attracted to all things Buddhist, science, medicine, reference books, politics, laws, fiction, fantasy, nature, mythology, music and art. Each of these things have an order to them, systems that when practiced and repeated make sense or are understandable. She's an introvert who likes to be social. A pale girl show loves to use her face as a canvas. An old soul who is no hurry to grow up. She will soon be transitioning to her Senior year in High School, and all of the process that accompanies that year. We're entering the last years of her being with me daily and my trying to keep pace with who she is in the moment, not the girl I have in my mind's eye, but the young woman standing before me. That will be a constant revision process for the remainder of my life, but for her now it's all new and ever expanding.

Her path may go in any number of directions, as a teacher of Seniors I know what they write in their colleges essays in the fall, are often obsolete by the time they are fashioning their scholarship letters in the spring. This is the time of experimentation on one hand and staying sure-footed on the other. A tight rope of academia and adulthood converging. As long as she learns from her failures, as well as her successes, and keeps progressing forward, she'll be fine.

So here I sit on the convergence of the girl I knew, the young woman before me and the woman in the making. This is a grand first footstep in the direction of a field she's always been interested to explore!

Good Night, Old Souls and Young Scientists, G'night

Let your fingers do the walking...

I've been writing this blog for just over 4 months. It has been read by almost 4,000 individual readers (not including me). It has been read in 24 countries. The large 5 pointed stars on the map above represent countries where I've traveled or lived. The small 4 pointed stars are countries and regions I'll be traveling to in just over a month. The hearts represent the countries of my readers. Amazingly, most of them are in countries I've yet to visit and long to see before my eyes shut for the last time. Africa will be the next place I lead an educational tour, if the students are willing. Asia after that!

I'm not currently aware of knowing anyone in Russia, Indonesia, Italy, Ukraine, Mexico, Chile, Columbia, Malaysia, China, Spain, or India. Friends may be traveling through these countries or new friends may be finding me through Google +, as it says I had 18K viewers and I can't imagine why other than my "circle of friends" (some well-known and well-followed) on Google being an onramp to my page and by extension my blog.

I'm aware of knowing people in the US, Canada, France, UK, Japan, Australia, NL, Germany, Costa Rica, Ireland, Austria, Egypt, and Trinidad & Tobago. I'm looking forward to visiting Australia and New Zealand next month and returning to Oahu in July.

Social Network. Internet. Messeges in digital bottles. 20 years ago, in South Park talking about the new global tribe and asking what did people want....this is what we wanted. To share our universal stories and feel connected. To be of use to ourselves and others.

I've been fascinated by writing, maps and travel since I was very young. The idea of sailing around the world still appeals to me. The idea of every buying a plane ticket around the world appeals to me, too. Only it wouldn't be a fast and shiny 3 week and 7 stop flight, I'd drag it out for YEARS. Go native in each port, make a base, and get lost in one direction until I had to find my way back. Then do it all over again on a different point of the compass the next day...

The reason I loved sailing on the boat from Maine to St. Croix was that I could account for every mile of the trip between the points of departure and arrival. Sailing last month through the B.V.I., I experienced that same sense of belonging to the human scale of the world,  traveling by wind power from island to island and learning about the distinct nature of each place.

Keeping journals of my travels and reminding my self now of how little my young self knew or understood in depth is astonishing. This summer I hope to cull some of the tidbits of this ritualized practice to provide some insights for a memoir. In August I hope to have the seeds to bring to a workshop to with an established author/teacher for a week and nurture it along....

The owl is calling me. Earlier in the woods the ravens were following me and the dogs, hopeful that Cora might catch another rabbit or at least a snake warming itself. Now it's late, I've walked the trail in my neighborhood and dragged my finger across the blog map in wonder of how far my fingers tapping here at night, into the land of x's and o's, have taken my thoughts...so far around the globe and yet, curiously, closer to who I really and maybe someday closer to unknown people I may one day call my readers and friends.

Good night, to friends and readers ~ near and far, G'night!

Maa & Baa

This picture was taken in the house where I lived on Nourse Road in Bolton, MA from the time I was born until I turned 10 years old. I'm not sure how old I was in it. My sister was born when I was less than two years old, but she wasn't here then, I'm not even sure if she's a twinkle in my mother's eye yet.

My mother sang to me when I was young. She bought me pretty clothes from DR in Harvard Square and Marimekko, but I preferred the overalls from Sears & Roebuck. She introduced me to classical, blues, and jazz music. She let me run wild in nature. When she remarried, she threw musical instruments and books at all six of us children and felt lucky when something stuck. It all seeped in overt time and we reference it now. We sang together as a family and made up musical shows. She encouraged creativity. She took writing courses at Harvard Extension and yet she never finished her degree. Her writing was good, yet she was so busy helping 6 kids and a difficult husband, who wanted to be published and yet was unethical, that she had little time to call her own.

She took us to museums, art shows, plays, concerts of all varieties, to churches and temples, to the sea shore when a hurricane was coming and outside to eat dinner as many nights as she could get away with it.

She loves to be outside, in the light and air and she has a hard time sitting still. We share that. We also have, as my 2nd step-father describes it, "no filters". We take in everything. The words people say, the words they chose not to say, the bits of materials scattered on a sidewalk, the texture of paint, the emotions coming from people while they appear silently before us. It can be overwhelming, and that has contributed to both of us helping others to be productive, before we've allowed ourselves to be productive.

She is a sculptor, but if you call her that she'll get angry. Just like she apologizes when she's about to serve you a great meal...she'll tell you if you really like it, that she can't repeat it, as she never makes anything the same way twice. So if you like it, it's a happy accident ~ she can't take credit. This is starting to change and we're all starting to ask her exactly how she's made things so that she, and by extension we, may make it again.

She could have been a poet or an interior designer. She has a great eye and ear. She's helped us all refine ours and we're indebted to her more than she'll ever accept. She's also a great listener when you really need that. She's taught all of us about compassion and kindness, too. She only lashes out when she is deeply hurt or angry from feeling disrespected. She is the middle child, between two brothers, and didn't feel valued in her youth. I'm not sure she feels completely valued now, although I'm so glad she's with my second step-father who adores and gets her. They've known each other since I was 8 or so, but have been together since I was 25 or so. They wake up to take pictures of the moon, time tides to go to the beach at just the right walking hours, make verbal, visual and physical jokes together as they "night crawl" through the house...

I look just like her in negative. My dad had a dark room and printed some negative of me in reverse and showed me old photographs he still had of her : twins. Physically were are very much the same. Emotionally we are very much the same. Except I love to put my face in and under the water and she doesn't. I love to seek adventure and so does she, although she hasn't made it a priority. She had drama in her youth, early marriages and with so many kids. That drama gobbled up lots of energy that could have been used on art or adventure. She sewed the seeds in me, but didn't nurture them fully in herself. I'm hoping she'll continue to sculpt and scribble for a very long time.

Her art so far has been our family and the homes she's created for us. You see her third husband, my second step-father also had six children when they got married. Together they oversee 12 adult children, all of the grandchildren and we were all reeling these last years after my sister's (I refuse to call her my step-sister, as she was a chosen sister from the time I was 8, through her becoming a married sister, until the cancer struck) death from appendix cancer. It comes in waves and they're getting smaller, but she's always with us. My mother continues to be close to my second stepfather's children, too. The ones who have been in my life since I was 7, and who I also call brothers and sisters (in fact I do the same thing with my stepmother's boys, as I've known them since I was born).

Her gift is to somehow love all of us and make us each feel it unconditionally. To be one of 14 children and to feel love from all my sets of parents and siblings is miraculous. I attribute that to my Mom. She has modeled love, compassion and over coming emotional hurdles with kindness. It wasn't easy and at times it was overwhelming, to the point of exhausting (for all of us), but it remains a gift. One I'm now trying to model and pass along to my kids as well.

Today Frank, Mom and I went to babysit some goats. Yes, Goats! Kids, if you prefer, and it's the most relaxed and happy I've seen here since winter ended! She warmed up the bottle, fed the smallest kid and we watch them all play to the point of exhaustion while we three humans watched from inside the pen. It was a grand way to spend Mother's Day Eve with her.....

Good Night, Mothers and Children of Mothers, G'night!

Growing old gracefully...

This is a picture of me taken at the end of my first Triathlon, Reebok's Women's Triathlon series, in Canton in 2003. I came in 5th in my age group and had I known how close to the top I was, I could have pushed it more to break the top 3, but I was just surfing it, like I do most races; doing it to finish and enjoy it as it happens. I trained by my own wits; no books, classes, clinics or anything. You see, I've always been active and love to be outside. This was just my first attempt at turning my love of moving outdoors into a strategic goal.

Since I was young, I can remember loving to run long distances. Mostly through the woods of the 50 acres my parents had when I was a child. From birth until I was 10 years old, I could often be found running through the woods, over the fields, catching coo on my neighbors, climbing trees to take pictures of far off mountains and sunsets, dragging toboggans and radio flyers up big hills to ride down them, riding my bike and wheeled tractor up and down the driveway. There was also a brook and pond on the property. The brook ran through the woods for a long distance, into and through the pond with a waterfall on the West side of the pond. I put waterfall in italics, as when I returned many years later to visit it, I realized it was less than 12" tall, but in my minds eye, as a child with an active imagination, it was a giant watery obstacle for homemade twig & leaf boats to navigate! The pond was just big enough for us to skate on and we didn't really swim in it. There was a pond in town that most folks went to when it got really hot. The pond had leeches and snapping turtles, but we loved it. Most seasons we'd run wild from property to property, from orchard to orchard and only come home at dark.

Once we got a bit older, bikes became the vehicle of freedom and could cover more ground than running. We'd also make up race courses and tag games on our bikes. When I moved from a rural town to the suburbs there were "bike paths" to ride around town. The paths consisted of raised sidewalks, conservation trails and intentionally neglected potholed ridden roads (the theory amongst the voting townies being that people would drive more slowly-- same idea behind not salting the roads). This was now the 70's and we were living in a town that shared a high school with the neighboring town. There was no public transportation between the towns, except for the twice daily school buses. So one had to become a good cyclist to bike the 6-7 Miles (depending on which route you took) to go early or stay late in the other town. As my older friends learned to drive and bought (or were given) cars, I'd sometimes "bum rides" from them on my bike. Yes, I'd hold onto the car, while sitting on my bike (no helmet) and be towed from my house in the center of one town to the HS in nearly the center of a the other town. The most direct route took us right by the Police Station. I never bothered to let go and ride past it, as they didn't seem to give hoot.

I only attended the public High school for one year and then I switched to a Prep School, also roughly 5-6 miles from home; however the kids who attended were from all over Eastern MA and there were borders from all over the country and world. The day students visited each other by train, hitching, biking and walking. Again, as we got our licenses and cars that changed, too. I remember riding my bike to Cambridge, Lexington, Newton and farther. These rides would be 10-15 Miles, one way.

My love of boats and water came early. I was 12 when I bought my first kayak. I was 17 when I moved on board the sailboat where I would live for three years (in Maine and in St. Croix--sailing between the two). I loved to swim my whole life: quarries, ponds, brooks, rivers, streams, reefs, walls, wharfs, oceans, seas, coves, diving, snorkeling, spearfishing, and set goals of natural points of interest with my siblings to swim to and talk along the way. In Junior High School, after learning to swim in fresh water ponds and the Atlantic ocean, I took a lifeguarding course in the brand new outdoor pool that was built at our school. It was taxing, exciting and served me well. I don't remember taking any formal swim lessons; ever. I think I just watched what others did a head of me and copied them; and as technical requirements increased (salvage diving in St. Croix), I learned more efficient strokes and techniques. I've been lucky to have many mentors and people willing to invest in refining my abilities in water along the way.

I started road running when I was 12. There weren't anything called running shoes then; 1974. There were various sport shoes and cleats, but no "running shoes". I remember buying a pair of Adidas because they were what soccer players wore, and I figured that they spent their whole games running. I'd run on hard packed dirt roads, gravel roads, sidewalks, pavement and conservation trails (close to simulating my 50 acre woods). I took up Soccer and Basketball in High School. Played on the boys team in Soccer (there wasn't Title IX yet) and the girls team in Basketball. I swam too, at the Brandeis pool for an alternate gym class (and loved it). I ran when I moved on board the boat (plus swimming and rowing, naturally). I ran on land as we sailed down the East Coast (you can learn a great deal about a place by running through it first thing in the morning and seeing how it wakes up). I ran on the islands, later in Portland, Me, NYC and SF. I ran road races with Joannie Benoit before she was the first female Marathon Olympic Gold Medalist. She'd be half way back from the half way point out around Back Cove (before there were trails around it) and I'd be half to the half way point. She was soooo fast!

In NYC I ran my first 10K. They called it the L'eggs (after the nylons that came in eggs) Mini-Marathon and it was around the perimeter of Central Park. I joined the New York Road Runners Club. Only time I've ever done that. The reason being that the "Central Park Jogger" happened shortly after I moved there, I loved Central Park (and took the train from Brooklyn to run there), and I'd often run after work (first year in mid-town, next 3 at Astor Place) from the office to the park and though the park. Brooklyn was nice to run, especially along the Promenade, but it never matched Central Park for me. I didn't own a bike or a car in NY.

In SF, I ran all kinds of crazy races, but I regret never having run the Bay to Breakers. I will at some point, as it can't be left un-run in my mental map of races. I think the Zoo Run was my favorite. At night, when many of the animals are more awake and I swear to god they were cheering us on! It was their turn to watch us exhibit our animal nature. Lots of chest thumping, shrieking and carrying on!
I owned a bike and a car in SF. Biking was the best way to get around if you weren't going to a formal meeting. It was also a really nice way to get out of town and explore other counties.

It wasn't until I  was done having children and moved Back East, in 2002,  that the idea of triathlons entered my consciousness as the new way to challenge myself. Crossfit wasn't a term yet, but as I turned 40 I knew that moving in more directions, not over working any one direction and keeping up with my yoga (done since I moved on the boat at 17) and stretching would be important. The bike piece is still my weakest piece. As a trainer friend said to me recently, "well you've never really owned a performance bike. They have always been utilitarian." Yup, me in a nutshell. I've also muscled through with whatever machinery I had a hand, and it's worked.

It wasn't until I started talking to other aging active folks, that I realized how natural tris are for middle age. Each component keeps you strong in limber with many muscle/skeletal groups, so what's not to like? For me, again the machinery.   Haruki Murakami writes about it in his memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I can't find the exact quote (but will later, my pollen headache it making my patience short this evening), but he wrote something along the lines of swimming and running being the more pure pieces of a triathlon, as you only need a few basic pieces of equipment; running- shoes, glasses, shorts, a shirt; swimming - a suite, goggles, cap. A bike requires just that: a bike; PLUS, shoes, glasses, and other gear to keep up the bike (forgetting about the accessories that can go on for days and many dollars with a bike). So it's the part of a tri that seems over done. I know there are other triathlons that use boats, kayaks, paddle boards, mountain bikes and such instead of the road/tri-bike, but they also can be pricey even though they have less moving parts.

So tonight I'm going to bed, feeling like I'm entering a second childhood in a way; being true to the 10 year old in myself who loves physical challenges, running, swimming, biking and moving fast through nature under my own power. But also entering my years of growing old gracefully, but not by  sitting still (something I despise), but by moving authentically forward with strength, curiosity and the commitment to keep finishing what I set out to start!

Good Night, Ageless Athletes, G'night!

Old Faithful

A MB-6 Bridgestone dark moss green with gold lettering, which I bought in SoMa in the mid-90's as a alternate form of transportation, since parking in SF was horrible, has been my bike for three triathlons.

If you Google it now, it will come up as a Vintage Classic bike. The nubby tires I had in SF for the hills and curbs in the city and for the trails of Sonoma, Napa and Half Moon Bay, have been replaced by smoother, thinner road tires for these races.

I have one other bike, an Elektra Townie, that has served me well in suburban life and for the stop-n-go of biking with my children as they were learning to be proficient and manage longer distance. I love the "flat foot" proportions and the chopper-like staring with the grip gear controls. I've even ridden in trails through the woods to get to rail-trails with the kids, and it's muscled along nicely. It's a very girlie bike ~ metallic pink with brushed aluminum fenders.

But my old faithful is my Bridgestone. It's amazing how well it will perform with toe clips, an every ready allen wrench set, WD40 and a spit shine. I may have to duct tape the seat before the race in two weeks, as it's worn spots are now sprouting holes, and it if rains the foam inside will get punky.

I'm very much a New Englander of the waste-not, want-not school of machinery. I've looked on Craigslist for Tri-bikes, but they are so darn pricey and if you're going to be investing in a fine machine that will properly fit, it's best to know you'll use it for a very long time, and that it will serve you well. Tri bikes aren't just Road bikes on steroids; they're designed with different aerodynamics in mind and can be heavier than a road bike. It seems that Quintana Roo is the bike of choice for people of my gender, age and stage. I've had two different showroom guys steer me towards the Dulce model. But when I look at it (and it's price tag), I figure my old faithful is good for another season of sprints.

In the background of the picture above you'll see the nose of an antique kayak with a race number peeled off it's bow. I bought that kayak, second hand,  with money I got for selling my Moss Green Raleigh Supercourse bike and that I'd earned working on Donaldson's Chicken Farm, when I was 12 years old (40yrs ago) and it's still my kayak of choice, too. It is an Old Town touring kayak, and still tracks better into the wind than many new fangled yaks with rudders!

I guess as long as my nearly 53 yr old frame is capable of maneuvering my ancient toys through the modern games and traditions trails I love to travel, than I'll hang onto these old faithfuls for a while longer. Tonight's sunset cruise of 8 miles before coming home to make dinner was full of quick shifting gears and the sweet smells of a new spring's fragrance filling the air. Ahhh to be out and about on my bike!

Good night, fellow wheeled folk, G'night!

17 April 15

Last night I was sharing at room with Frank a the Island Beachcomber  in St. Thomas. We'd arrived via plane and enjoyed some patties (Shrimp & Chicken) and curried chicken with beans-n-rice, potato salad from a Dominican Republic family's food truck. Afterwords we changed in room 101, put on our sun-blocking goggles and shirts and proceeded to swim-free dive for the next two hours.

We saw porcupine fish, puffers, nudibranch, an orange spotted file fish (aka unicorn fish), gobies, basslets, sergeant majors, tangs, black spiny and white spiny sea urchins. Corals: elkhorn, stag horn, finger, star (rough and smooth), golfball, rose, leaf, smooth and grooved brain. Sponges, fans, and feather worms (which Frank learned how to poke politely to watch them disappear).

Swam back to the hotel and played Monopoly on Frank's iPad on the beach, followed by dinner at the beach bar. Frank had the burger and I had the Beachcomber salad (beans, corn, mango and veggies).
It took two hours to order and be served dinner. It took one hour to order and split a slice of cheese cake ~ welcome to Island Time. Dad and Linda arrived late, as their plane at the Miami connection was delayed. While waiting, Frank and I looked at the stars and fed a black and white cat, "named Charlie because of her mustache", some of the leftover chicken from the truck while I kept circling to the front office to see if they'd arrived. I hadn't seen either of them all school year, the longest stretch since I moved back East that I haven't been to Maine.

The only thing that met me at the office during my hour of circling was the sound of a loud Coqui tree frog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZUOiZG84c0. Every time I looked in the direction of the white cedar tree, with it's beautiful flowers, it would turn silent. If I swiveled my head, it'd start up again sounding out for a female. The courtyard at the hotel is full of flowering bushes and trees, along with mango (below pic) and palm (coconut & date) trees. The trees and bushes were rich with doves, lizards and lonely frogs.

A week earlier it had snowed at home, followed by days with the peepers magical arrival in the bogs and the northern tree frogs calling,  much to Mother Nature's chagrin. Now I was a close to 2,000 miles south of home and was still being serenaded by my lovely little sticky-footed friends. A week ago it was snow, however, and today I was snorkeling! The good life.

The bar tender was named Rosie. Her son was six years old and as curious and spirited as "Charlie". At 10:30pm, when I asked where the boy had gone, she said, " he's sleeping in the car until I can drive us home." Her white tank top simply said, in bold black letters: STAY DRY. Now that is such a loaded phrase for a seemingly single mom working at a beach bar on an island with cats, lizards and birds all leaping about looking for fresh water to stay alive, while serving vacationers endless alcohol laden tropical drinks, and casually observing small fish leaping out of the water, many feet into the air, looking for a safe place to escape the big fish that come in at night to hunt.

***

The boat is rocking. We ate all of our meals out today. Dad and Linda went to Rightway and bought provisions for the next week on board the boat. We'd taken the ferry from St. Thomas to Tortola  ~ a high speed ferry that only took an hour from Charlotte Amelia to Road Town!

Charlotte Amelia Harbor:

(Marie and Irene, I now realize the hull and sticks were all wrong for the Roseway!) BTW: The people of St. Thomas hate Wednesdays and Fridays as those are when the cruise ships land and flood the island with 6K people; some places thrive while others have fallen due to the blight of this big business (another story for another time).

On the ferry between the islands, Dad and Linda were pointing out the old haunts we'd be revisiting under sail. For them it's been 5 years since there were last here; for me it's been 18 yrs and it's the first time for Frank.

He is loving it here: snorkeling, swimming, island ways. That make me SO happy.

Conch Charters, Road Town Harbor:

The name of the boat is Le Bonne Vie and we certainly are experiencing the good life.

Le Bonne Vie Saloon

A Room Of My Own

Dockside with family crew

Frank and I shopped for a birthday present for Dad in Road Town, while they were at the grocery store. Road Town has grown in size. They are going the way of the Japanese and other island nations, and filling in the harbors with landfill to create a larger commerce center. Whole views I remember from my last trip have disappeared. However, for the locals that mean more trade with the tourists, and having lived in this kind of economy in St. Croix, I can appreciate the opportunity it creates.



Also walking to Road Town proper from Conch Charters (our home on the dock over night Friday), we passed a new park being built. The Queen Elizabeth II Park. I'm guessing it's a Jubilee project. http://www.bvinationalparkstrust.org/index.php/parks-programs/parks/tortola/queen-elizabeth-ii-park I saw a running track being built, the foundations and framing of buildings for snack bars, shaded eating areas, a pool, a naturalist office and more going up. Only the kids playground at the south end is completed, and the four times I walked by it, there were families and kids using it! The Facebook page has local kids using it for prom pix, birthday parties and as their "happy place." Sure looked that way to the casual observer. I'm so glad that a large swatch of harbor and the lands leading to it are now permanently assigned to the people of Tortola,BVI.